Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Watercolor Painting with Markers

M has been doing this forever and somehow I’ve never posted about it. This was something he discovered completely on his own!

We had a set of 6 chunky markers and he left them out for several days without their lids on. Of course they were completely dried out by the time we realized it. This happened about a year ago, and he still has, and uses, the same markers! His easel has a spot for a cup of water (for watercolor painting obviously), and one day he filled it up with water, dipped his dried markers in the water, and began drawing with them like nothing had happened.

I think I’ve read somewhere that you can use dried markers this way, but I have no idea how M knew it! He has made some really neat artwork in this way… kind of like regular marker drawing with a bit of watercolor painting here and there. Again, he’s been doing this for the past year and the markers are still working great (as long as they are wet).

Want to see a little demonstration? :)

Dip the dried up marker into the water:
Color on your paper:
And voila! Beautiful artwork:
So, put those old markers to good use! :)

7 comments:

I have not heard of this one. I love this idea! Did you know that you can also use old markers to make colored glue? We buy a bunch of plain white glue during the back-to-school sales. You pull the felt colored part out of the marker, and drop it into a glue bottle. In a couple days, shake it up, and you have colored glue!

He is a very creative thinker! I remember when I was younger I knew someone who would inject water into dried out crayons using a syringe-type thing (I'm not sure exactly what it was) but this is much simpler and a kid could do it on their own!

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I am a wife of 13 years and mother of two sons, ages 6 and brand new. We have a lot of fun learning and growing together. I share a bit of that here, and welcome you to follow us along our happy (but sometimes exhausting) little journey.
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